


Where the Birch Trees Twist Like Ivy

by Chromat1cs



Series: Deepwood Wreathing [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Baron Sirius Black, Frottage, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prostitution, Rentboy Remus Lupin, Rentboys, Self-Indulgent, hi my name is Isa and I have zero self-control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 23:13:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromat1cs/pseuds/Chromat1cs
Summary: Lord Sirius Black has a weekly appointment, but this evening there’s been a bit of a change in schedule.





	Where the Birch Trees Twist Like Ivy

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t stay away from forest themes with these two, I s2g. All my thanks to Jay for the great prompt for this round of 24-Hour fest, it was tropes!! I chose rentboy, or rather rentboy chose me—I just can’t win against the Very Hungry Plots. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy ^^

He looks out-of-place in Mayfair in every respect besides his face. 

Sirius can hardly summon words for several moments when he opens the door to the knock on his study door, that weekly knock that tells him yes, it’s Thursday after 9:00, and makes his insides stir with patently ridiculous attention to say as well yes, his valet has ushered the young man up the back steps, his rent boy for the night—Sirius opens the door expecting Gideon, and sees instead Ganymede himself.

The young man isn’t blonde, likely more of a dun brown in daylight, but the lamp in the study throwing itself against those curls in a halo casts them sinful gold, molten like the amber chips of his eyes staring Sirius straight down to his core with inquisitive purpose. “You—are not Gideon.” Sirius manages air after several beats that feel too long, stifling; although he’s already in shirtsleeves for the night, he feels suddenly very constricted. 

“Gideon’s a-sail to Portugal, left yesterday. I got all his regulars.” The young man’s voice is like Venetian glass, rounded handsomely and yet sharded by turns, rasped by the street but that accent isn’t an urchin’s. He hasn’t grown up doing... _ this. _ Lord forgive him, Sirius hardly wants to put a title to this habit of his half the time. The rent boy leans against the jamb with unexpected confidence, arms crossed over a shabby waistcoat that Sirius sees is just barely patching when he looks a bit closer, let’s his eyes flicker beyond the arresting angles of the man’s face, yes, he looks as though he takes careful care of himself despite the slight deshabille. He’s all long lines, sinewy, those alluring lips incongruent and plush beneath a gently-sloped nose and eyes that stare, stare,  _ stare  _ into Sirius’ absolute center. Sirius shivers slightly despite himself and blinks, swallows, gestures into the study. 

“Welcome, then.” Blast it all, his voice trembles slightly and he can’t divine if the young man is smirking at him through it or not as he crosses into the study. Gideon was all snark and so Sirius could be used to it, the folly of youth in one red-haired satchet of a man, boundless and brimming with the sort of laughter that made Sirius beg for his silence more often than not when his passions would rise in the heat of their habits and risk rousting the entire household near midnight. But this man, his replacement, godling or not,  _ Look at how he holds himself, it’s subtle but it’s as though he’s readied for anything he might not even see coming out of the corner— _ this man is different. Not solemn, but certainly not as free as Gid had been. Sirius clears his throat as he shuts the study door before asking, as casually as he can, “What should I call you?”

“Remus.”

“Why not be the victor and go by Romulus?” Sirius drawls the repartee without thinking, his default wit primed by the social ladder up which he’s constantly a-climb despite his hatred for the politicking of it. He nearly winces when the rent boy turns to him, wolfish, yes,  _ The name suits, _ a flash through that stare of his in an ancient shimmer like the winking flutter of some forgotten spirit. But he isn’t frowning, nor is he grinning. 

“I don’t care for Rome,” the simple assertion in that half-hoarse voice that, for some reason, boils Sirius’ blood with unexpectedly lovely fervor. Sirius crosses his own arms, mimicking Remus’ stance unconsciously and evens his own look at him. They barely match height, the young man a bit shorter, and Sirius can’t divine his age much beyond the telltale obviousness of one’s early twenties. 

“Don’t tell me someone like you would have an issue with all the ‘fisher of men’ posturing.” Sirius nearly sets himself afire when the statement comes out thick with suggestion,  _ Fuck, _ he’s never felt nerves like this before. Tonight was just supposed to be a weekly romp, venting the buildup of his proclivities so he doesn’t dissolve in the salons or the back of the cafés like the worst-kept secrets of poets, artists, other sordid barons alike. He has a reputation to keep. A reputation that suddenly feels very useless when faced with this stranger, this Remus, replacement toffer who could likely melt ice with that look. Sirius feels himself flush slightly where he stands and hopes the dimness of the study keeps it from being too obvious. To his surprise, Remus offers him the barest hint of a smile. It nearly stops Sirius’ heart.

“I prefer to think of myself less as a fisher, more as a hunter. Fishing is terribly passive. And I’ve very fine teeth, my lord.” Remus doesn’t waver a single inch, and the reply goes straight to Sirius’ nethers as his tongue dries up for several heartbeats in the wake of his title spilling from such a sharp tongue.

“And how do you please,” Sirius finally says, hoping he isn’t trembling with visible need as he squares off with this shab-coated creature of such desperate glory that Sirius can hardly believe they’re sharing a conversation—he was only supposed to flounce with a pretty young man for an hour and be through it with, not have his foundations rattled so mightily. He expects the charge is heftier for whatever that billable item might be to a rent boy—“Passive, or active?”

Remus inspects the cuff of his jacket with such unpracticed nonchalance that Sirius nearly melts to the floor. “That‘s entirely up to you, sir. Regardless of what you please, might I still use my teeth?”

Sirius’ arousal spikes with a sharp pang and he’s nodding before he can control himself. “By your leave. Do you kiss?”

He asks for he knows it’s a sensitive bit for some of the rent boys, too much, too intimate, they prefer keeping things below the belt and nothing more. Gid only ever let Sirius kiss anywhere besides his mouth—looking now at Remus, Sirius desperately and innately wants to know what those lips would feel like against his own. It can’t hurt to ask. If he has to pay a bit more for it he’ll fucking well  _ manage.  _ Christ risen, he’s touchy for it right now. 

Remus tilts his head ever so slightly to the side with a natural gesture that it belies a drop in that cover of his, if such steeliness is a cover instead of his nature. “If you would like to, yes.” Sirius hardly lets himself imagine that slight rise of rosiness on Remus’ cheeks is there. 

Sirius nods then, curt and businesslike despite the thickened air of anticipatory intimacy rising in the study, and swallows another thick lump of hesitation. “I would quite like to,” he murmurs. “Shall—we start then?”

“Is there somewhere you would prefer I lay my coat?” Remus casts about the well-cluttered study for a surface not covered by expenses, ledgers, sheafs of the proof of Sirius’ estates and the upkeep that goes with them. Sirius is at Remus’ side before he means to be there in two short strides, and he assists the young man wordlessly in the removal of the coat he now feels is crushed velvet. 

“This is nice.” And he truly means it, running his thumb along the back if the collar not too badly worn by what looks like time and the odd bit of weather. Remus undoes a simple pair of cufflinks and rolls his sleeves to his elbows before sparing a glance at the coat.

“Thank you, it was given me by a writer in Mallorca two years ago.” Remus evidently notices the slight risen brows Sirius accidentally throws at him and smiles to himself, wider than the last, to sufficiently flutter Sirius’ spirit further. “I promise I’m not some sort of travelling dollymop,” he clarifies, “I only spirited myself away to the south for a bit. Needed fresh air beyond the city, do you know the feeling?”

“Entirely.” Sirius drapes the jacket carefully over the back if the armchair to his left, smoothing the fabric to stay from wrinkles as though the coat were his own. He looks at Remus for a bit longer, watching the way he undoes the simple knotted tie at his throat for a few seconds before he lets the question on his tongue come to life—“Why on earth would you ever return to London?”

Remus sighs lightly to himself and pulls the undone cloth from his neck to wind it idly around his fingers for a moment. “I’m rooted to the city. Gideon took a boat, others have taken trains or even just walked away, but...I’ve tried. I can’t stay gone from here for long. Don’t for the life of me know why.” He stares, unseeing, at the bottom row of the bookshelf across from him, and Sirius follows his eyes with a stroke of self-consciousness before he recognizes the stare as entirely wistful. Sirius anticipates it isn’t so much an accidental slip in composure as it is the brief musing of a young man used to baring himself for living, and perhaps internal openness goes hand-in-hand with the freedoms of the body. Sirius wouldn’t know either way. But the reverie dissipates as soon as it had dawned, and Remus is pocketing his necktie and looking at Sirius with that moon-bright stare all over again within moments. “Now. Would you like to continue discussing my inability to free myself from this sodden island, Lord Black, or would you like to fuck me?”

Sirius bites his back teeth together at the thrill that proposition lights up in his guts and slides his hands into his trouser pockets with a slow nod. Remus’ eyes are brighter than anything as he steps nearer—a single step—and leaves the rest of the short space for Sirius to cover instead. Sirius licks his lips quickly, nervously.  _ Hell, when was the last time you were nervous about this?  _ “Just so we’re clear: I can kiss you, and I’ve leave to fuck you however I please?”

“However you please. You are the one paying, afterall, and I assure you I’m fit for it.”

Deciding not to fill the air with any other inanities, Sirius covers the space left between himself and Remus, this walking god, this sculpture come to life in shirtsleeves and bracers, to kiss him in introductory slowness. It’s a light shock, more than a bit of a smack to his senses, but he breathes through it, latches onto the feeling of the lips beneath his own that part with a sigh to the tantalizing slick of Remus’ tongue. Sirius hasn’t kissed anybody in years and feels plagued by the sudden sweetness of it, stricken through with a flash in his veins like quicksilver, pressing closer to pull Remus nearer and devour the sensation of him like the hallucinogenic herbs that burn in purple smoke at the more indolent parties of his peers. Remus tastes of forest air, of a place far outside if London’s fug and scrim, and Sirius is sure he’s dragging that thought up from the railing depths of his most ridiculous imagination but he can’t care enough to make himself stop. The feeling is utterly green, fresh, florid with newness and the wrenching pull of discovery, so staggeringly incredible that Sirius finds himself starving for air soon enough and pulls back to gasp quietly on oxygen. 

Remus immediately attaches those lips of his to Sirius’ neck and continues his expert pathfinding along the faint blue of Sirius’ arteries, dragging a surprisingly slaggish groan up from the baron’s depths as he pushes aside the fine linen of his collar and nips softly at his collarbone.  _ Teeth indeed.  _ Sirius flexes his fingers against Remus’ shoulders where they’ve slid to hold him, pushes at the simple leather bracers to make them fall to the side, and shuts his eyes to absorb the shuddering eagerness unfolding before him. 

“Have you a clear flat surface, or is everything covered with your ledgers?” 

Sirius opens his eyes to see the blotched shadow-dark of the ceiling yawning up above the study when Remus finally speaks up against the blazing skin of Sirius’ right shoulder, shirt opened to throw his pale skin at the mercy of Remus’ mouth. Sirius swallows around his immediate undoing and nods. “Chair.”

“Chair?”  _ Damn him, _ Remus grins as he parrots Sirius’ broken speech back at him as though the young man isn’t wholly responsible for the show of idiocy.

“I—here, with me.”

“By your leave,” Remus hums against his skin, all puckishness, to make Sirius suck in a breath through his teeth when Remus scrapes  _ his _ teeth across one of Sirius’ nipples. Already he’s more adventurous than Gideon. Already, and unbidden, Sirius feels his heart straining for affection just as well as his trousers.

Sirius stumbles backward and sideways with as much grace as he can manage in the midst of drowning beneath the weight of blind adoration. His calves hit the fine upholstery of the armchair and he steals an extra moment of purchase on Remus’ body, holding him close, his own heartbeat harder and faster than the young man’s but still hammering against one another, caught in the heat of bliss somewhere between perfunctory and passionate that feels very much like danger. Sirius is normally quite a risk-averse man, and yet this,  _ this  _ feels like living in way it never has with any other encounter.  

His fingers are on Remus’ buttons before they’re even done sitting, Sirius with his knees splayed and shoes still on, Remus astride his lap in a kneel that presses them ever closer and makes Sirius groan into another open-mouthed kiss as he ruts forward unconsciously. Remus rewards him with an airy sound at that, more glass, smoked glass, glass like the edge of frost that refuses to let go as spring creeps in, the vestiges of melancholy that can’t help but—

_ “Oh,”  _ Sirius tips his head back and breathes a sharp oath into the silent study when Remus palms him through his trousers and slams all thought shut tight. 

“Yeah?” The rent boy’s voice is rough but achingly sweet at Sirius’ ear, wolfy teeth teasing at his earlobe, whuffing at the side of his throat, hips rolling forward again to drag another sound from Sirius. “Tell me what you like.”

“I—take me in your hand, along with you,” Sirius stammers around the desperate grasping for sanity, hardly able to meet Remus’ eyes directly and so he doesn’t, keeps his eyes shut for the safety of familiar dark behind his lids. If he doesn’t look, he isn’t lost to this riotous beauty unfolding before him. If he doesn’t look, he isn’t adrift. If he doesn’t look, he isn’t in thrall to this creature who can’t possibly,  _ possibly  _ be real. 

Remus kisses him again and it feels like he’s patently hungry for it, delving against Sirius’ mouth as though the baron’s tongue is made of ambrosia itself. Sirius responds in kind and doesn’t break the time when Remus touches him, unfastening his trousers with singular alacrity and a deftness that makes Sirius ring with desire down to his very marrow. He feels his pulse surging, hot and fast and starved,  _ God in heaven, _ it’s only been a week since he last came but how can he crave it so deeply? How does this happen to a man? Once again, thought stops short when Remus wraps a hand around him, humming with approval against Sirius’ lips and making Sirius exclaim wordless splendor in tandem when feels Remus drawn out beside him. 

Sirius has to look down then to behold what can make his lungs tighten with such delectable violence. “Do you like it this way often?” He drags his eyes up at Remus’ questions and nods, blindly, wildly, when he sees the ferocity of approval deep in that green-gold stare that echoes vaguely predatory against Sirius’ more basal thought. 

“Define often,” panting, wanting in the moment some levity in attempted humor to save himself from the dire straights of shorn desire. God help him, Remus laughs, bloody  _ laughs _ , an open-throated laugh that snarls his lip up over those impish teeth and squints his eyes into shards of ocean glass. Sirius holds him, not quite meaning to, tighter around the waist and revels in the warmth there. 

“As long as you know what you like.” Remus settles back down on a satisfied huff of breath with the edges of a smile left on his lips and Sirius is so taken by the brightness he sees there, so struck by the limned shadows that trace this man’s features like a lover’s fingers, that he reaches between them himself and lends his own rhythm of touch to them. Remus’ eyes flutter shut with a earnest gasp, a whorish push of his hips that sets Sirius’ insides afire, and he’s utterly and beautifully lost to it. 

The two dissolve into naught but breath after long enough. Sirius gives up on the designs of throwing Remus across the desk to take him with his knees over Sirius’ shoulders as he tended to do with Gideon. He so much more deeply prefers this fatal dive into real closeness, a luxury Sirius lacks in nearly every corner of his life outside of his own imagined privacy, and so he stays on the armchair with Remus and frots desperately into the heat of his palm to the beckoning eagerness of Remus’ mouth, Remus’ hands, Remus’ smell and presence and talent, and—

“Are you sure you don’t want to fuck me proper, milord?” Remus’ mumble is rushed and hitching as  _ oh,  _ he’s found his rhythm with Sirius and isn’t about to slow down. Sirius marvels at how this is just as much about Remus’ own pleasure as it is about Sirius’, and surely he’s looking forward to the payment at hand but a face contorted into bliss like that is either a thespian’s mastery or pure truth. 

“This—this is perfect,” Sirius hisses, meaning it, needing it, clawing after the feeling with each arc of his hips; he’s getting close and he can feel it, that approaching precipice as though he were screaming forward on the shoulders of some massive sprinting beast. Remus’ gaze flashes like a hart through the trees and Sirius stares back with bidding purpose— _ Follow me, Remus, I dare you, follow me into these woods— _ man to man, animal to animal, fuck the study, fuck the city, in this moment all that exists is the touch they share to the skin they own and the lines they’ve blushed and dragged along one another in the brief twist of learning to how breathe the same air. 

Remus comes first with a half-voiced exaltation to a nameless god, the patron saint of sex workers, “Oh _ fuck,” _ spilling thick across his fist and halfway onto Sirius’ stomach where his shirt isn’t completely shed and his trousers only raked down halfway to allow for their haste. Sirius feels his insides boiling as Remus keeps pace with a professional’s attention, even as he trembles and comes down from his crest, and it’s the whispered  _ “Come on then,”  _ lined with sex and gold and something enigmatic that lands heavily on Sirus’ ear from where Remus speaks it into the space at the height of Sirius’ jaw that undoes him. He nearly chokes on his own breath as his limit snaps and sends him off, reeling and euphoric, into the brief white oblivion of completion. 

Sirius returns to himself after several bouts of release that stay mostly tame with only a drop or two making it all the way to Remus’ bare chest. The men catch their breath where they sit for a moment, supporting one another with shaking wrists and thighs, until Remus breaks the silence. 

“I’m glad Gideon went to Portugal.”

Sirius huffs out what little breath he has left in him for a chuckle and nods. “Here’s to the sailors.”

Silence falls again and neither makes a move to extricate themselves from one another, and Sirius wonders if Remus felt the same trembling ancient spur of purpose between them. He tries to formulate a way to ask that without sounding too terribly mad, but Remus is the first to speak up again; “Are Thursdays your only evening then?”

Sirius raises an eyebrow and shakes his head carefully. “I also refuse visitors on Mondays.”

“That could work for me.”

Sirius has to laugh again at the incongruity of it, a rent boy scheduling his next visit instead of the john. He has to respect the prudent sense of business, and he can very well embrace it with enthusiasm. Deciding to keep quiet on that strange snap of connection, those visions and thoughts of forests and creatures and what was perhaps another life—perhaps one that they had shared in another time, awoken by the brief and passionate harmony, he’s always been a secret believer in the strange potential of folk magic—Sirius nods. He cards an errant curl off of Remus’ forehead with his clean hand and absorbs the glory of another small smile, now tired and viciously reddened but still so chaotically lovely. 

“I believe we’re in business then, Remus.”


End file.
